posted at 6:41 pm on April 16, 2013 by Allahpundit

The “evidence” is thin, but this is so far off the media’s beaten path after attacks that it’s worth reading just for the novelty. When even the SPLC is pooh-poohing the idea of militia activity, you know you’re in uncharted territory.

While some of the factors surrounding the Boston bombings could point to these groups—a simplistic homemade bomb, causing mass casualties, falling on Tax Day—other factors don’t add up. For many of these groups, the date that most matters to them is not Tax Day or Patriots’ Day or even Hitler’s birthday, but the anniversary of the Waco siege… On April 19, 1993, 76 people died when a radical, antigovernment sect’s compound in Texas burnt to the ground after days of firefights with federal officials. When Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1996, killing 168 people, it fell on the anniversary of the Waco raid, which he cited as a motivation for the attack…

“When you think about it, the target is not clear,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “What the target was not was the government, or the IRS, or a minority group—black people, gay people, Muslims, immigrants, Latinos, and so on. It wasn’t targeted at any sort of specific subgroup.”

Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League, agreed, saying this target didn’t feel like the work of extreme right-wing terrorists since it had no clear connection to the government.

“The bottom line is that no domestic extremist movement just based on their ideology alone would have a huge reason to attack the Boston Marathon,” Pitcavage said. “The prominence of the event could cause anybody from a variety of movements to carry out an attack like that.”

But wait. Didn’t Eric Rudolph bomb random civilians at a concert during the Olympics, an event kinda sorta like the Boston Marathon? Sure, says National Journal — but he wasn’t part of a group. Their real argument here, in other words, isn’t that a domestic terrorist didn’t do it, it’s that if one did, he probably wasn’t being sponsored or supported somehow by an organization. (BuzzFeed actually dialed up a few militias this morning and got denunciations of the Boston attack across the board.) Note that well, because if the bomber turns out to be domestic, the idea that he doesn’t represent any larger movement will instantly go straight into the toilet.

Speaking of terrorists and larger movements, a post-attack candygram from our “allies” in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood:

In Arabic, senior Brotherhood leader and the vice chairman of the group’s political party Essam el-Erian took a different tack. In a post on his Facebook page, he condemned the Boston attack — but also linked it to the French war in Mali, the destruction in Syria and Iraq, and faltering rapprochement between the Turkish government and Kurdish rebels.

El-Erian is making the case that all of these setbacks — from Boston to Baghdad — are somehow connected. “Who disturbed democratic transformations, despite the difficult transition from despotism, corruption, poverty, hatred, and intolerance to freedom, justice tolerance, development, human dignity, and social justice?” he asked. “Who planted Islamophobia through research, the press, and the media? Who funded the violence?”

El-Erian just poses those questions — he doesn’t accuse any specific group of masterminding the Boston Marathon attack or the unrest across the Middle East.

Interesting that he seems eager to connect the bombing to events in the Middle East rather than scold people for jumping to conclusions about possible connections. Makes sense, though: Jihadis benefit the Brotherhood in two ways, first by providing violent intimidation for the Islamist movement and second by serving as a “bad cop” against whom formally nonviolent “good cop” Islamists like the MB can distinguish themselves. The Brotherhood gets to denounce the attack and use it as a pretext to blather about its grievances, even though there’s no hard evidence pointing to a jihadi pedigree for yesterday’s bombing. Oh, and don’t be shocked when you read the Foreign Policy piece linked above and find that the MB’s English-language statement about the bombings was quite different from this one. They’ve been talking out of both sides of their mouth that way for years, saying one thing in English for the benefit of the suckers in the west and another for the benefit of the locals. Always pay attention to the Arabic version.

Anyway, an interesting question kicking around online today in light of the news about the pressure-cooker IEDs: How much would two six-liter containers packed with nails, BBs, and explosives weigh? The cookers themselves are light (5-7 lbs., per Amazon); my best guess is that each device in total would weigh around 25 lbs. so that’s 50 total, which gives FBI agents who are watching the surveillance video something to look for. News reports today say the bombs were packed in “duffel bags,” but it’s hard to imagine the bomber carrying 50 lbs. of bombs in a single bag by hand without his movements being obviously labored. He could use two bags, one for each bomb, and carry each in a different hand, but that may have required him to pause sporadically if he was walking more than a few blocks. And in any case, having a bag in each hand would make him easy to spot on the tape. It would have been easier for him if in fact he was carrying them in backpacks rather than duffel bags, but a man with two backpacks is also easy to spot. Or, I suppose, he could have jammed both bombs into one very heavy backpack, but in that case how is he planting the first device in the trash can without anyone noticing? He’d have to stop, unzip, lift it out and put it in, which would take several seconds. If he has each device in a separate bag, he can just slide it off his shoulder and drop it in as he’s walking past, in a split second, and hope no one notices. Long story short, there has to be something suspicious to his movements on the tape.

Blowback

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I’m ushering at a large parade next week, and I’m not really worried, but starting to get a little creeped out by this Boston thing and now the ricin. I hope this isn’t going to be a series of attacks.

The left’s attempt to connect the bombing to “Patriot’s Day” is laughable. We all know too well that the left is absolutely disgusted by patriots and patriotism. So if you are going to connect the bombing to it being “patriot’s Day”, it’s only logical to conclude the suspect is liberal.

I’ve decided that I’m gonna formally speculate that it could be a left-wing group or a left winger. The Unabomber was a leftist, and an environmental wacko. What about the Occupy crowd? They can be very violent, and on Tax Day, they could be upset that the “rich aren’t paying their fair share.”

Axelrod said that Obama suspected that the Boston Bombings had to do with Tax Day and presumably someone who didn’t want to have to pay his ‘fair share’ must have done it. And we all know how our Dear Leader got to the bottom of the Benghazi Bewilderment with his spot on detection that it was the utube video that disrespected the Prophet.

calling a BS on that news video supposedly showing “the bomb”… no way that was the device given the proximity to the mail box and it’s lack of visible damage. Bomb IMO was about 10 feet to the left in that photo and behind the metal rail, not in front of it… but what do I know.. about as much as those newsreaders apparently.

calling a BS on that news video supposedly showing “the bomb”… no way that was the device given the proximity to the mail box and it’s lack of visible damage. Bomb IMO was about 10 feet to the left in that photo and behind the metal rail, not in front of it… but what do I know.. about as much as those newsreaders apparently.

gatorboy on April 16, 2013 at 6:54 PM

That is exactly what I thought. Because they blurred the photo, it’s hard to tell exactly, but it looks to me like the mailbox has no damage. You’d think there would be some if there was a bomb of that magnitude right next to it.

In Arabic, senior Brotherhood leader and the vice chairman of the group’s political party Essam el-Erian took a different tack. In a post on his Facebook page, he condemned the Boston attack — but also linked it to the French war in Mali, the destruction in Syria and Iraq, and faltering rapprochement between the Turkish government and Kurdish rebels.

I got an accurate translation of their statement. Just one sentence, actually, but it’s telling.

It is my understanding that 76 Branch Dividians did not “die”, they were murdered or at the very least died protecting their own from an over bearing show of force by government. Also, the BD were never known to be an “anti-government” group out to overthrow the US. I think even most mainstream authors and pundits recognized the government overreach in both Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents. Also, name one terror group in the US that targets minority, gays, etc. Leave it to the race baiters to bring this up. Unibomber? nope. He was a lefty who hated technology. Weather Underground? Nothing separates them from what happened in Boston, and many of those folks are now either teaching or a friend of a US President. Leave it up to the SPLC to paint terror in the US as targeting “protected minorities”.

Fact 1: This explosive was meant to attack innocent people. Not buildings, not bureaucracies, institutions, military groups, etc.

Fact 2: No terrorist attacks their own population.

Therefore, the person was not ‘one of us’. The person hated ‘us’, innocent Americans.

Why hasn’t anyone taken blame/claim?
possibility 1. The guy who was supposed to release the notice is sitting in that hospital room with the FBI two feet away from him.
possibility 2. They are waiting for the rest of the crew to erase their tracks and get out of the country.

calling a BS on that news video supposedly showing “the bomb”… no way that was the device given the proximity to the mail box and it’s lack of visible damage. Bomb IMO was about 10 feet to the left in that photo and behind the metal rail, not in front of it… but what do I know.. about as much as those newsreaders apparently.

gatorboy on April 16, 2013 at 6:54 PM

Not clear initially that the pictures are after-explosion, but they are. Closeups now show a bent and banged up pressure cooker and (second picture) a shredded black duffel/backpack.

calling a BS on that news video supposedly showing “the bomb”… no way that was the device given the proximity to the mail box and it’s lack of visible damage. Bomb IMO was about 10 feet to the left in that photo and behind the metal rail, not in front of it… but what do I know.. about as much as those newsreaders apparently.

gatorboy on April 16, 2013 at 6:54 PM

Would the extra 10′ (your guess) of distance explain the lack of damage to the mailbox?

Laying in the street, on the right side of the image, is an object with what appears to be a bluish trail leading back to the sidewalk. Take an average line through the trail and follow it back….it points almost directly to the location of the “bag”. Not proof, but certainly a clue. Another way is to draw a circle around the edge of the debris line; the center of that circle is most likely the location of the bomb. Again, looking at the image and the debris in the street, it seems to locate on the “bag”.

It is my understanding that 76 Branch Dividians did not “die”, they were murdered or at the very least died protecting their own from an over bearing show of force by government. Also, the BD were never known to be an “anti-government” group out to overthrow the US. I think even most mainstream authors and pundits recognized the government overreach in both Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents. Also, name one terror group in the US that targets minority, gays, etc. Leave it to the race baiters to bring this up. Unibomber? nope. He was a lefty who hated technology. Weather Underground? Nothing separates them from what happened in Boston, and many of those folks are now either teaching or a friend of a US President. Leave it up to the SPLC to paint terror in the US as targeting “protected minorities”.

stop2think on April 16, 2013 at 7:02 PM

Thank You. The liberals will never stop trying to rewrite the history of what really happened there. Janet Reno murdered those people. By the way, about a third of them were black.

Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.

U.S. was warned of terror attacks
Source: Look for trail through Sri Lanka, Bangladesh

Although it is not known yet who is responsible for Monday’s heinous bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed three and injured more than 100 people, a source within Iranian intelligence services told WND the Islamic regime was behind them and to look for trails through Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The source said the bombs were planted near the end of the race so that the horrific images of the blasts would be captured by all the media there and be replayed over and over throughout the world.

A senior commander of the Islamic regime had warned less than two months ago that terrorism was coming to America.

“If the people of America and Europe do not confront the aggressive policies of their governments, they cannot then remain far from the possible future events (terror attacks),” the regime’s armed forces deputy chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, said in a Feb. 23 interview with Fars News Agency, a media outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards. “Al-Qaida groups and other services which operate for the interests of America (in Syria) will soon change the region of their operations and thereafter create new problems for America and Europe.”

Jazayeri, objecting to U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war, warned that explosions similar to those in Syria would take place in other countries.

With information from a source in the supreme leader’s office, WND reported exclusively on Dec. 11, 2012, that a team of Quds Force terrorist leaders had infiltrated the United States to attack from within in 2013. The source said the team is to create instability in America through terrorism should the U.S. fail to accept the regime’s illicit nuclear program or increase sanctions, confront Iran militarily or intervene in the Syrian civil war.

In a WND exclusive report on Feb. 28, the source said that a six-member team, including an explosives specialist, was to join 10 Quds Force commanders who already have a cell of 50 terrorists in the U.S. The source added that Iran is working with al-Qaida factions because al-Qaida attacks would not leave behind a link to Tehran.

The source for today’s information blamed the Islamic regime for the Boston attack and pointed to the collaboration of the regime’s Quds Forces with Hezbollah and elements of al-Qaida with links to individuals in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He said that under Quds Force guidance, Hezbollah recruited Sunni terrorists allied with al-Qaida factions in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, who then entered the U.S. for terrorist activities.

The information has been shared with U.S. officials.

But until the FBI and other U.S. agencies complete their investigations, all information regarding the bombings must be considered with great caution and any conclusions would be premature.

These bombs were constructed so that the fragments blew out, horizontally and low to the ground. Almost all of the pictures and stories about injuries are to the lower extremities (legs, lower abdomen, feet). While the shock wave moves in all directions, the bb’s and whatever else was packed in the bomb did not.

The Germans in WWII had land mine referred to as the Bouncing Betty, which was designed to maim, not to kill. It popped up about 2-3 feet and detonated, sending shrapnel outward about thigh high.

The pressure cooker bomb was on the ground, which explains the foot and leg injuries, and an almost complete lack of head and chest wounds.

That mailbox is most likely older than everyone on this blog, made of steel plate. It probably weighs close to 500-600 lbs. Ball bearings will just ricochet right off that thing.

I don’t think so. At least not the first bomb. The smoke from the first bomb came from behind the fence, not in front of it, and moved towards the street.

With the closed circuit vid they show what I think is the right half (looking from the street) of the bomb site, and I don’t see the crosswalk or the mail storage box, so so I’m thinking the crosswalk and building entrance is below the camera and that would put the package next to the mail storage box even further to the left of the camera.

Does that mean the second bomb was to the right of the entrance/crosswalk where the guy is running through or was that the first bomb site? You’d think that closed circuit vid would show where the smoke eminated from and some indication of where the two bombs were in relation to the camera. Why don’t they provide that?

Somebody is withholding information and asking questions that should be answerable with the the full vid.

I don’t think that is the bag either. How did a bomb outside the gate bend the gate around the mailbox.
I hope they keep showing pictures, and I hope they figure this out. This administration is rarely truthful and we deserve the truth on this one. Well, all of it…….Benghazi, F&F.
This act of terrorism was too easy, too successful not to share all that we can in order to prevent something similar.

I posted this yesterday and it’s still causing me to wonder about the location. Just curious, since so many reports about garbage cans.

6.42am AEST: Authorities have a identified a suspect, who is currently being guarded in a Boston hospital with shrapnel wounds. Law-enforcement sources said at least the first explosion occurred in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel.

Notice how quick CNN and the others are to mention Oklahoma City, but not the New York city bomber, the Fort Hood shootings or even 911.. or any of the dozens of bomb plots the FBI broke up before anyone was killed..

They wave McVeigh’s name around as if he were the norm, rather than the exception.

To watch these guys, you’d never know a Jihadist had ever planted a bomb or used an airliner as one… ever been a mass shooter..

Just typical liberal think PC BS?… or are they this stricken with tunnel vision, they act almost depressed it wasn’t an American. At least so far as we know now. It’s like they want that result so badly they can taste it.

I’m relieved it was likely a foreign group,.. I hate thinking one of us could do something this profoundly evil. Not that we don’t have our share,.. but you know what I mean.. We’re supposed to be the good guys.. it’s other nations which target civilians on purpose, not us.

In the video, both bomb sites are recorded. To tell them apart, the first explosion was near the finish line, and the sidewalk was lined with tall flags, and a stand-off barrier (about 4 feet thick) between the street and where people could stand on the sidewalk.

The second bomb (the first shown in the video with the “bag”), there are no flags, no stand-off barrier (there is a fence barrier), and in the background you’ll see white table cloth bistro tables (no tables at the first bomb scene).

I don’t think that is the bag either. How did a bomb outside the gate bend the gate around the mailbox.

If the bomb isn’t in that bag, then it still has to be somewhere within that photo, probably no farther back than just behind the people leaning on the gate. And I’m not seeing any other suspicious objects. If it was in a 6 qt pressure cooker, a decent sized bag would be needed, and that’s the only one I see anywhere in the vicinity.

This reminds me so much of the Palestinian bombings in Israel – not a whole lot of explosive, just a whole lot of shrapnel. Designed to maim, rather than kill. Palestinians want to keep the death count low when they commit terror acts in Israel; that makes the Israeli response seem “disproportionate.” But they still want to maximize the carnage and the terror. Lots of ball bearings, nails, other horrible stuff.

Gateway Pundit links to the Boston news site and the 2 pictures are clearer but the after blast one is still blurred because of the gruesome things in it.
You can see burn marks on the mailbox and that the fence is bent, literally wrapped around the mailbox.

I’m confused though, if these pictures are the second blast, where was the first?

The NBC Nightly News interview with the Mass General surgeon was interesting. He is a former military battlefield surgeon from Iraq and Afghanistan. According to him the wounds were identical to the IED wounds he treated there.

This reminds me so much of the Palestinian bombings in Israel – not a whole lot of explosive, just a whole lot of shrapnel. Designed to maim, rather than kill. Palestinians want to keep the death count low when they commit terror acts in Israel; that makes the Israeli response seem “disproportionate.” But they still want to maximize the carnage and the terror. Lots of ball bearings, nails, other horrible stuff.

notropis on April 16, 2013 at 7:35 PM

That.. and their habit of firing rockets from Mosque courtyards, Hospital parking lots.. playgrounds.. they then run like craven cowards praying the counter battery fire kills lot’s of the meek and very young..

all so they can wave a bloody child’s corpse in front of the international press’s cameras..

That same international press never mentions that was the intent of Hamas, that they did it deliberately. The left of course, believes it’s always Israel’s fault, and never condemn Hamas for using it’s own children as props in their propaganda war.

I still say it’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, the creeps behind the Mumbai attacks.

ExUrbanKevin on April 16, 2013 at 6:57 PM

That’s exactly who I thought of.

International hotel attack. Same cosmetic makeup as the marathon. And it fits the FBI description of someone “dark” possibly black. That’s a designation closer to the South East corner of the Islamic world.

I’ve decided that I’m gonna formally speculate that it could be a left-wing group or a left winger. The Unabomber was a leftist, and an environmental wacko. What about the Occupy crowd? They can be very violent, and on Tax Day, they could be upset that the “rich aren’t paying their fair share.”

What the target was not was the government, or the IRS, or a minority group—black people, gay people, Muslims, immigrants, Latinos, and so on.

There are lots of old fashioned Americans – families with a mom and dad, Catholics, Christians. Just a random thought.

williampeck1958 on April 16, 2013 at 7:41 PM

The SPLC doesn’t think they count,.. and can anyone name a terrorist attack on any of these protected sub species of democrat loyalists where they were the target?

Has there been a rash of bombings nobody covered recently?

The SPLC will never get it, to a Jihadist, we’re all the target, our wives, our kids, all of us. They seem to think only a “right wing” group could possibly want to kill Americans.. when history shows it’s the left with a long bloody history going back to 1866 and the democrats forming the Klan as their terror wing.

And another question, wouldn’t you suspect that the race officials themselves would have a down the street shot constantly rolling at the finish line? How hard can it be to reconcile this photo with whatever finish line vids the officials have? That should show if the bag was it, or moved, or whatever.

bluefox on April 16, 2013 at 7:28 PM
Articles seem to go back and forth on that, inside the lobby, on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. You’d think that would be easy to figure out based on where the glass from the hotel ended up.

slickwillie2001 on April 16, 2013 at 7:32 PM

I agree. Wasn’t most of the injuries right in front of that hotel/building behind the barriers? That news report that showed the 2 bags as possibly being the “bomb” would have killed and injured the runners close to the finish line imo; rather than knocking them off their feet. Also one of the pictures right in front of that building/hotel on the cement was black and totally scorched.

Oh sorry, that posted before I wrote anything. Weird.
Good picture. There is no way this was not caught on a camera. If there is not a reasonable explanation, and a thorough one, they are covering something up.
Like when they say it is a right wing Christian granny there had better be video.

but it’s hard to imagine the bomber carrying 50 lbs. of bombs in a single bag by hand without his movements being obviously labored. He could use two bags, one for each bomb, and carry each in a different hand, but that may have required him to pause sporadically if he was walking more than a few blocks.
(from the commentary)

Why the assumption that there is only one person carrying bombs?

If there were two explosions and hence two bombs, I would presume that there were at least two people carrying them … one each. The London Transport attacks (2005) involved backpacks; one carried by each perpetrator.

Thanks, I spent 6 years in Marine Artillery; I’m actually fairly well versed in IEDs. It’s likely that the limb injuries were of people especially close to the detonation. It’s not likely that this device was designed to limit the blast height. Also, I didn’t necessarily expect to see the mailbox or the tree on its side, but there most certainly would’ve been noticeable and distinct damage to both as they were within feet of the supposed device.

Look at the shadows. There aren’t any in the after blast photos. The sun had already moved on.

BobMbx on April 16, 2013 at 7:58 PM

An astronomer with a good idea of Boston could probably make a good estimate of time on pic number 1. Boyston runs a bit north of due east (I’d say about the 80-260 axis), so the effects of the sun’s movement on the shadow from the building on the south side of the street is a bit exaggerated versus what it would be if Boyston were a true east-west street.

Has there been any confirmation the bombs were in trashcans, or is that one of those rumors that has been accepted as fact?

farsighted on April 16, 2013 at 8:15 PM

I haven’t seen any trash cans in any of the videos/pics. Been sort of busy so haven’t seen anything about “pressure cookers. Just heard about them. A lot of rumors imo. I just hope the truth won’t be covered up.

The authorities don’t have a clue about who bombed the Boston Marathon. It’s early but they don’t have a clue about the alleged Ricin attack on a Senator. It seems to me that this administration is better at dealing with the aftermath of stuff than they are in showing any leadership. I’m not even bringing up Benghazi in this thread because we all know just how much of a failure the rat-eared coward was with that.

When do the recriminations start? When DHS fails to figure out who was able to deliver unnoticed 50 pounds of bombs to the finish line at the Boston Marathon?

I’m putting money on it being one of our happy crazy people whom the ACLU have helped liberate from our mental institutions and are now free to pursue self-expression in public by exceeding the body count of previous mass-murderers and thus claim the recognition of others that the voices in their head tell them they deserve.

I haven’t seen any trash cans in any of the videos/pics. Been sort of busy so haven’t seen anything about “pressure cookers. Just heard about them. A lot of rumors imo. I just hope the truth won’t be covered up.

bluefox on April 16, 2013 at 8:22 PM

You have been busy. Do an internet search on Benghazi and catch up on just how blatant these criminals are in covering up the truth. Seven months after the fact and we know very little more than when the rat-eared devil and the pig in a pantsuit lied their asses off in the Rose Garden.

How was Ambassador Stevens killed?
What was he and the CIA doing in Benghazi in the first place?
Why wasn’t assistance called in?
Why was the crime scene left unsecured for weeks….

Etc. This isn’t a thread about Benghazi but it shows just how little we will probably find out about the Boston bombing if it doesn’t fit the administration’s narrative that this is domestic terrorism and not yet another example of the religion of peace seeking to kill infidels (us).

I haven’t seen any trash cans in any of the videos/pics. Been sort of busy so haven’t seen anything about “pressure cookers. Just heard about them. A lot of rumors imo. I just hope the truth won’t be covered up.

bluefox on April 16, 2013 at 8:22 PM

I think that is a trashcan, not a mailbox. Up the street roughly where the first bomb was (676 Boylston St. in Google Maps Street View, looking north), there’s the blue USPS mailbox right next to another one of these boxes).

Also, I didn’t necessarily expect to see the mailbox or the tree on its side, but there most certainly would’ve been noticeable and distinct damage to both as they were within feet of the supposed device.

BKeyser on April 16, 2013 at 8:03 PM

I can understand the mailbox not appearing significantly damaged or moved, but I would expect a small tree right next to the bomb to show significant damage.

And wouldn’t the actual bomb location be cordoned off in some way?

I think the photos are inconclusive as to whether or not that was the bomb. If I had to commit I’d say no.